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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867034">Light in the Darkness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles'>GoldenWaffles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Round of Wynaught Shots [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wynonna Earp (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bonding, F/F, Gen, Missing Scene, Nightmares, One Shot, Quiet Moment, They Drink Something Besides Alcohol, Wynaught Brotp, season 3-ish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:14:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,528</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Wynonna goes to the kitchen in the middle of the night and stumbles across Nicole in an unlikely position. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words, and sometimes the people who seem the most different are the ones who understand us best.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp &amp; Nicole Haught</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Round of Wynaught Shots [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>272</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Light in the Darkness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys, I've just been craving something calm and quiet, and I'd ruminated over this idea before, so now seemed like the time. It's just a tiny little scene I like to imagine happening. I don't have it pinned down to a specific time in the canon, but I imagine it sometime in S3, maybe soon after the gnome episode. But I'll leave it up to your imagination.</p><p>Anyway, I hope you find this to be a peaceful little interlude.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p>Nicole was almost entirely inside the oven when Wynonna walked in on her.</p><p> </p><p>This was an odd enough sight that Wynonna then proceeded to stand in the doorway for several seconds, confused and oddly transfixed. Of all the things she had expected to find in her own kitchen at two in the morning, her sister’s girlfriend crouched on her knees, scrubbing the inside of their oven was… not on the list.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” she asked finally.</p><p> </p><p>Nicole jolted violently at the unexpected voice, banging her head on the roof of the oven with a metallic <em>clang</em>. That noise was followed by a series of grumbled curses as the pajama-clad woman emerged from the oven and rubbed at her head, looking pale and annoyed.</p><p> </p><p>“Cleaning the oven,” she deadpanned. She checked her hand, as if for blood or soot, but it looked clean from Wynonna’s angle.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay… <em>Why</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, when was the last time <em>you</em> did it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh.... 1997?” Wynonna hazarded a guess.</p><p> </p><p>“And it shows.” Nicole pulled herself to her feet, joints popping as though she had been crouched there for more than a few minutes. She looked tired; smudges of darkness underlined her bloodshot eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Apparently not intent on offering any further explanation, she started rinsing off her blackened sponge in the sink. Wynonna just raised an eyebrow at her, nonplussed.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, but why at two in the morning?”</p><p> </p><p>“Couldn’t sleep.” Nicole kept her head down, but her tank top did nothing to hide the tension in her posture.</p><p> </p><p>”Uh-huh...” Wynonna stared at her for a few more seconds, then shrugged and continued on to the refrigerator. Instead of one beer, she pulled out two, and held one out to Nicole expectantly. Nicole glanced at it, but shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>“I have work in the morning,” she said shortly.</p><p> </p><p>“It <em>is</em> the morning,” Wynonna answered, waggling it in her hand more insistently. Nicole still hesitated, and so after a halfhearted eye-roll, the beer was exchanged for a bottle of water, which she did accept. She didn’t join Wynonna in sitting at the table, though, just uncapped it and continued to stand at the sink while she drank it.</p><p> </p><p>Wynonna took a water for herself, too. She wasn’t opposed to drinking alone— she did some of her best drinking alone— but it was late and, if she was honest, the water sounded better anyway. Nightmares left her mouth dry, and sometimes beer just didn’t cut it.</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t say a word as they both drank, but the silence must have pressed at Nicole, because ultimately, her voice was what broke it.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t want to wake her up by tossing and turning,” she explained in a low, defensive tone.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t ask,” Wynonna said, just for the record.</p><p> </p><p>“Sometimes it helps to do something physical.”</p><p> </p><p>Wynonna didn’t react, just continued drinking her water. After a long moment, she nodded towards the other room.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a window over there that sticks when you try to open it. Knock yourself out.”</p><p> </p><p>Nicole made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh.</p><p> </p><p>Around them, the house creaked gently as the wind blew against it. Something that was hopefully a coyote howled nearby. After a few minutes, Nicole knelt back down and continued scrubbing out the oven.</p><p> </p><p>For lack of anything else in the room, Wynonna’s eyes were drawn to the redhead kneeling on the floor in a tank top and yoga pants, valiantly attempting to deep-clean twenty years of baked-on grime with little more than sheer force of will and a stubborn refusal to give up. And the oven wasn’t even <em>hers</em>.</p><p> </p><p>But maybe throwing herself wholeheartedly into cleaning up a mess she didn’t even make was a good metaphor for Nicole Haught in general.</p><p> </p><p>“I get it, you know,” Wynonna said, apropos of nothing, after several minutes of silence.</p><p> </p><p>Nicole paused in her scrubbing, but didn’t emerge from the oven.</p><p> </p><p>“Get what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever this is. Doing stupid chores at two in the morning because it’s better than lying awake.”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t—” Nicole started, her voice combative, but she broke off before she finished the thought, and her posture sank, like she was forcing herself to relax. “I know you do.”</p><p> </p><p>Wynonna wondered how much Waverly had told her about their past, or even how much the other townspeople had told her since she first moved to Purgatory. It was hard to imagine that she didn’t have the full story by now.</p><p> </p><p>“Right. So... if you wanted to talk about it or something... not that I <em>want</em> to, but if you think it would help...” The words felt awkward in her mouth, and she almost regretted saying them, but they felt right, too.</p><p> </p><p>Nicole rocked back on her heels, pulling herself back out of the oven. She was looking over her shoulder at Wynonna, with her eyebrows arched in amusement. Wynonna sneered at her.</p><p> </p><p>”Never mind. Forget I asked...” she grumbled. Nicole stood up, stretching, and— to Wynonna’s surprise— took a seat at the table across from her.</p><p> </p><p>“Waverly’s right. You <em>do</em> have a soft side,” she said, her voice lightly teasing. Wynonna rolled her eyes melodramatically.</p><p> </p><p>“And look at that, just changed my mind. Offer rescinded.”</p><p> </p><p>Nicole chuckled.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, as if to clarify. “But thanks for the offer, rescinded or not.”</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever.”</p><p> </p><p>It was oddly companionable, there in the still night, letting the kitchen’s light chase away childhood terrors, drinking water in mutual silence.</p><p> </p><p>The silence meant that the creaking on the stairs, when it came, was impossible to miss, and neither of them were surprised when Waverly appeared in the doorway, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you two both doing up?” she asked, clearly bemused to see both of them seated at the table together.</p><p> </p><p>“Cleaning the oven,” Wynonna said, and Nicole stifled a laugh. Waverly’s eyes flicked over to the oven and the blackened sponge, then over to Nicole.</p><p> </p><p>”At three in the morning?” she asked, through half a yawn.</p><p> </p><p>“No time like the present,” Wynonna answered on their behalf.</p><p> </p><p>“Obviously. Why did I even ask?” Waverly murmured, sleepy amusement in her voice. She stepped the rest of the way into the room to hover at Nicole’s shoulder, her hand reaching out and brushing lightly through her sleep-mussed hair. “You okay?” she asked, so softly that Wynonna could barely hear, even just across the table. Nicole barely dipped her head in a nod.</p><p> </p><p>Waverly leaned down to press a brief kiss to the top of her head. Then, for a moment afterwards, she just rested her forehead there, nestled against the bright red hair, and Wynonna could see how the tension drained from Nicole’s body, the strain leaving her face and her shoulders sinking down. She still looked tired, but her eyes were less haunted.</p><p> </p><p>As Waverly straightened, her hand still stroking the back of her girlfriend’s neck, she turned her attention instead to her sister.</p><p> </p><p>“And what about you? Are <em>you</em> okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep,” Wynonna said. “Never better.”</p><p> </p><p>Waverly didn’t look overly convinced, but clearly her attention was split. She looked ready to interrogate further, but then Nicole ducked her head in a wide yawn, and Waverly glanced down, smiling to herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Ready to come back to bed?” she asked gently, and Nicole nodded, blinking sleepily. As she stood from the chair, Waverly looked back at Wynonna. “You should go to bed, too, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Wynonna nodded mindlessly, then raised her hands in surrender as Waverly narrowed her eyes at her.</p><p> </p><p>“I will, I will. Sheesh.”</p><p> </p><p>This seemed to satisfy her enough, and she started to pull Nicole back towards the stairs. But Nicole resisted just long enough to shoot Wynonna a look of her own— something soft and understanding, like empathy.</p><p> </p><p>“Sleep well,” Nicole said, with a very quintessentially <em>Nicole Haught</em> earnestness in her tone. Wynonna tilted her head up once in acknowledgement, and Nicole let herself be pulled away towards the stairs.</p><p> </p><p>“Goodnight!” she called to them both as they ascended, the sound of it echoing in the quiet house.</p><p> </p><p>The room felt empty after they left, the silence a little more silent.</p><p> </p><p>Wynonna glanced once towards the refrigerator, where the beer was, and the liquor cabinet, where the whiskey was. Then she glanced towards the oven, where Nicole’s sponge lay abandoned mid-task.</p><p> </p><p>She thought about drinking. She thought about cleaning.</p><p> </p><p>Then she stood up, groaning, and headed back towards her bed. The nightmares seemed to have quieted down for the night, and who knows what they would have to deal with the next morning, or afternoon, or week, or month. At the very least, they might as well all be well-rested. Or whatever passed for well-rested under this roof.</p><p> </p><p>There was a very quiet creaking from the room above hers, as her baby sister and the person Wynonna considered— albeit only occasionally, secretly, in the privacy of her own mind— her best friend settled in for the night. It was an oddly comforting sound.</p><p> </p><p>And with that, in the quiet of the Homestead, Wynonna cleared her mind of ghosts and curses, fell back into the embrace of her bed, and <em>slept</em>.</p>
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